The Bookworm Crush

by Lisa Brown Roberts

  Amy laughed. “You’re terrible, Dad. The play isn’t that bad.”

  “Are you kidding?” Dad’s eyebrows shot up. “It’s about a group of women who kill all the men in their village, then go on a—”

  “Patriarchy-smashing rampage. I know. I read the script.” Amy pointed her knitting needle at her dad. “Women are feeling a lot of rage these days, Dad. You can handle ninety minutes of fake rage.”

  “What if it’s not fake?” Dad put his hand on his heart. “What if they drag me from the audience as their sacrifice?”

  Amy’s phone buzzed on her lap, but she ignored it. “Dad, get a grip. You’re a cinnamon roll. Those theater women love you.”

  “You sure you don’t want to go instead of me?” he asked hopefully.

  “No. I, um, might have plans.”

  “Doing what?” Dad frowned. “I thought you were staying home with Brayden.”

  “What? Why?” Amy wasn’t letting Brayden ruin her night before it even began. “He’s almost eleven years old, Dad. He doesn’t need a babysitter.”

  “Mom’s worried about leaving him unattended. Remember what happened last time?”

  Amy threw her head back against her pillows and groaned. Brayden had tested out their burglar alarm, locking himself out of the house, then breaking back in. The police had not been amused.

  “Please, sweetie? I’ll bake you whatever you want tomorrow.”

  Amy’s fantasy of watching a movie with Toff crumbled like dust. “Okay.” She sighed. “But you have to make macarons.”

  “Deal. Thanks, honey.” Dad backed out of the room and closed the door behind him.

  With a sigh, Amy fired off a text to Toff. Sorry. Can’t make it. Have to babysit your biggest fan.

  He responded quickly. Bring him with you.

  No way. She’d rather reread that awful fan fiction Viv wrote about Prince Harry and Daniel Radcliffe than have her brother mock her favorite movie.

  Amy: I can’t. Sorry.

  Toff didn’t reply. Amy set her phone aside, cursing her brother. She grabbed the old-school gothic romance she was making the Lonely Hearts Book Club read for their next meeting. Maybe she could lose herself in a romance without annoying siblings.

  Bzzz. Amy glanced at her phone.

  Toff: Can you stream it?

  Amy: Yes. Why?

  Toff: Let’s watch P&P online together. 30 minutes? I need to make a candy run, since you’re not coming over

  Watch the movie together but not in the same room? She’d never phone-watched a movie with a guy before. At least it wouldn’t be as awkward as watching it sitting next to him. It might even be fun, right?

  Deal, she texted. See you in 30.

  …

  “Ready?” Toff said into his phone thirty minutes later. He’d made sure not to be late this time.

  “Ready,” Amy said. “Go.”

  He pressed play on his laptop. He was bummed Amy couldn’t come over. He’d had a lot of fun with her today, way more than he expected…and he’d come this close to kissing her, for bookface reasons.

  He tore open a package of Red Vines and put his phone on speaker. “You promise I’m not going to fall asleep?”

  Amy huffed. “If you do, it’s because you have a heart of stone.”

  Toff chuckled and took a bite of licorice. “Who says I have a heart?”

  “Well, something must be in there,” Amy said after a beat. “You did save me from the raccoons.”

  Toff grinned. “Maybe I was saving the raccoons from you.”

  On his laptop screen, fancy piano music played while the sun rose over a field. Keira Knightley walked across a meadow, reading a book. That looked like something Amy would do. Toff was 90 percent sure he was going to fall asleep in this movie, but he’d try his best to stay awake.

  Coaches didn’t fall asleep on duty.

  “Why are all these girls so stoked about a dance?” he asked a few minutes later. He felt sorry for the dad, who was stuck in a den of estrogen, with a wife and five daughters. “Who’s the poor guy they all want to marry?”

  “Shhh,” Amy said. “Watch.”

  And so he watched, for two hours and forty-eight seconds, and didn’t fall asleep.

  He ate the entire package of red licorice and two boxes of Whoppers. Fifteen minutes in, he put his phone on do not disturb so he could ignore texts from his friends and focus on the movie.

  He had a lot of questions about all the weird rules, like who could marry who and why Lizzie supposedly wasn’t good enough for the Darcy dude just because her family was poor. When he watched the Wickham drama go down, he remembered Brayden’s comment on the beach.

  No wonder Amy told Brayden she didn’t want him to “be a Wickham.” That guy was a jerk, convincing Lizzie’s flaky sister to run off with him after he’d acted like he was all into Lizzie.

  By the time they got to the scene where Darcy did that slo-mo walk across the field to Lizzie, after his aunt reamed her out, with all that piano music building up, Toff was fully invested in these two hooking up. He took his phone off speaker and held it up to his ear.

  “You must know,” Amy whispered along with Darcy on the screen. “Surely you must know it was all for you.”

  Of course she had the movie memorized. Dorky but cute, just like her. He didn’t tease her about it, though. He needed to see how this thing ended…which was happily ever after, of course, with kissing in front of a fire pyre, and Amy going almost completely quiet.

  Almost but not quite.

  As the closing piano music played, and he listened to Amy sighing happily in his ear, he had to admit, at least to himself…the movie didn’t suck.

  “So, did you like it?” Amy asked.

  Toff made a fake snoring sound, then pretended she’d jarred him awake. “Sorry, what? I fell asleep.”

  Amy huffed. “I’m having second thoughts about our coaching deal.” He heard a rustling sound in the background. “I need to go.”

  “No, don’t.” Toff sat up quickly, accidentally knocking empty candy wrappers off his bed. “The movie was good, Ames.” He ran a hand through his tangled hair. Coaching her was tricky, not at all like coaching a surfer. “I get the OTP thing now that I know the story.” It was true, even though he thought Darcy had a stick up his butt.

  He didn’t want to piss her off, but he had one more piece of coaching advice, an idea he’d had while watching the movie. “What about drawing your own P&P cover as part of your OTP post?”

  She was quiet, too quiet. Had he just undone their movie truce? Crap.

  “Why would I do that?”

  He was relieved she sounded confused, instead of like she wanted to throttle him.

  “Those drawings you showed me in your notebook were great. If you drew your own P&P cover and posted your cover with our shots, it would…uh…bring more you into the post.”

  “More me?”

  He liked that smile he heard in her voice. “Yeah.” She went quiet again, and his own smile drooped. “What’s going on in that bookworm brain?”

  “I’m thinking my drawings are okay but not great.”

  He scowled at his laptop as the credits for the movie rolled. “You sell yourself short, Ames. You’re talented. Strut your stuff.”

  “You really think drawing my own cover is a good idea?”

  The uneven mix of hope and uncertainty in her voice did something to his gut—something new and unnamable. He wished Amy could siphon off just 5 percent of his swagger. He wouldn’t miss it, and she needed it way more than he did.

  “I do,” he said firmly. “You’ve got this, Bonnie.” He hesitated. “Trust your coach.”

  She was quiet for so long, he checked his phone to make sure the connection hadn’t dropped.

  “Okay,” she said as he put the phone back t
o his ear. “I’ll do it.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Viv: We need to talk about THE WEDDING! And the COACHING! Text or come see me TODAY!

  Toff: Too busy, Wordworm.

  Viv: I know Dallas is surfing with you later. You can’t hide.

  Toff: Dallas who?

  Toff waited his turn in the lineup, sitting on his board, the waves rocking him up and down. So far, he’d managed to avoid talking to Viv about the wedding, She was stoked about it, and he knew he should be, too, but whenever he pictured it, his stomach knotted.

  He loved his dad and wanted him to be happy. He loved Viv’s mom, too. She’d been a part of his life for as long as he could remember. He’d always been cool with their parents dating, but he’d never imagined they’d take it to the next level and make their relationship permanent. Move in together.

  Swear those vows before God and everybody about “till death do they part.” A shiver racked his body as the vow echoed in his mind.

  He’d have to talk to Viv eventually but not today. And never about coaching. He felt…protective of what he was doing with Amy. Whatever it was. So today was just him and the waves, and later, reviewing OTP/#BookFaceFriday photos with Amy.

  The sun peeked through the fog as he waited for a rideable wave. He’d been surfing all morning in the typical June Gloom weather. Dallas had been bitching about it for days, joking that it was sunnier in Wisconsin, where he used to live, than in Southern California.

  “Yeah, but you don’t have an ocean in Wisconsin, dude,” Toff had said. “It’ll burn off. It always does.”

  He didn’t mind the gray skies or the cold. He needed to be in the water, the only place he felt he was his true self, or whatever. The best part of surfing was how he blocked out everything else. He focused on melding with it, not conquering it. Usually his worries disappeared like mist in the sunshine, but today they kept poking at him.

  This morning Dad had dropped another bomb—he and Rose were having an “impromptu” engagement party next Friday, and Toff’s attendance was mandatory.

  He tilted his head up, soaking in the sun. His friends in the lineup laughed and joked with one another, but he tuned them out, his thoughts bouncing from his dad, to Rose, to Viv, to Amy—who was taking up a lot of headspace—then back to his dad…to his mom.

  Last night, he’d dreamed about Mom, which hadn’t happened for a long time. Dream Mom was perfect. She hadn’t lost her hair to chemo or lost so much weight he worried she’d wither away. Dream Mom was strong and healthy, and he’d buried his nose in her thick hair, inhaling her perfume while she hugged him tight. For a few seconds, in that real-not-real space between asleep and awake, he’d thought she was still alive.

  Then reality crashed down like a monster wave smashing him underwater.

  Sometimes, out of nowhere, the scent of her perfume overwhelmed him, usually in the kitchen. One time, about a year after she died, the overpowering aroma had been so strong, he’d frozen in his tracks, unable to move. He’d searched the house, certain a bottle must be hidden somewhere, leaking the familiar flowery scent, but he’d never found it.

  He still remembered riding his bike into town that day to the herbal store, the smell of Mom’s perfume lodged in his nose. He’d asked Natasha, the herbalist, about the perfume. He figured she’d know, since her store was full of weird-smelling stuff. She’d taken him seriously, not laughing at his question. Like most of Dad’s friends, she’d paid him a lot of extra attention after Mom died.

  “Toff! Yours!”

  The sharp voice startled him out of his thoughts. It was Murph, one of his friends from the school surf team, bobbing up and down on his board, pointing to the incoming wave. Shading his eyes, Toff watched a decent-size wave form in the distance. He waited patiently as it undulated toward the crowded lineup. Timing was everything.

  Now.

  He spun his board around and faced the shore, then paddled fast to catch the breaking wave as it lifted him up. He popped up on his board, balancing and leaning into the rail, taking the drop onto the face of the wave. He carved perfect turns, like the champion he was, completely in the zone.

  Until some asshole dropped in, slicing across the wave, heading right while Toff rode left. Their boards collided, Toff’s board flying out from underneath him, the wave knocking him underwater. Shit. He struggled to reorient himself, then resurfaced, spitting out water, and grabbed onto his board, glad for the ankle leash. A hot streak of fiery pain tore through his stomach. Son of a bitch. Dropping in like that was a bullshit move.

  He scanned the water, not surprised to see his friends already on it, yelling at the guy and chasing him off like a pack of sharks. Sometimes his friends were chill when kooks did dumb stuff, but that guy was good enough to know the rules. Unlike Toff, the snake didn’t look like he was hurt.

  “You okay?” Murph yelled, paddling toward him on his board. “Need me to tow you in?”

  Toff gave him a thumbs-up, but he wasn’t okay. He heaved himself onto his board, pain shooting through his torso. He looked down to see a gash in his wet suit, blood seeping through the fabric. Dammit.

  Murph waved his hands in the air to signal for the lifeguards.

  “Don’t do it,” Toff snapped. “I can get myself back to shore.”

  “Too late,” Murph said.

  “Screw you,” Toff said, but his heart wasn’t in it. He lay on his board, paddling half-heartedly with one hand, clutching his stomach with the other. He wondered if he’d busted a rib in addition to the cut. “Who was that asshole?”

  “Don’t know,” Murph said, paddling next to him and breathing hard as he towed Toff on his board, “but he won’t be back.”

  Kendra reached them first, running fast with her lifeguard’s first aid kit. Toff stumbled when his feet hit the sand. A few people ran down to meet him, their expressions wide-eyed and worried.

  “Back off!” Kendra yelled, and everyone did except Murph. Kendra was fierce, reminding Toff of Nakia in Black Panther.

  Toff sank onto the sand, wincing in pain as sharp spasms racked his torso. He stretched out his legs, pressing his hand on the wound. The last thing he wanted was a scene.

  “Hey, Kendra, how’s life?” Toff said casually, trying to sound like he had a paper cut instead of a bleeding gash. He knew all the lifeguards who patrolled the beach, but he’d never been on the receiving end of their help before.

  “Did you hit your head on your board?” Kendra asked, all business. “That was a hell of a crash. Follow my finger with your eyes.”

  “Nah,” Toff said, his gaze tracking her finger. “Just this stupid cut. You looked bored, so I thought I’d give you something to do.”

  Kendra ignored his joke as she unzipped his wet suit, slowly pulling it down to his waist, exposing the gash in all its ugly glory. Shit. That sucker was deep.

  “Lie down,” she ordered, so he did. She tore open a packet from her first aid kit and applied gauze to the wound, then grabbed his hand, placing it firmly over the bandage. “You need to apply pressure to stop the bleeding.”

  Toff winced, struggling to maintain his chill. “Guess it’s couch time. I was ready to call it a day anyway.”

  Kendra shot him a withering look and grabbed her radio from her lifeguard belt.

  “Hey, man.” Murph crouched next to him, grinning. “You’ll do anything for attention, huh?” He tilted his head toward the clump of anxious girls hovering several yards behind Kendra. “You’re gonna have a badass scar. Chicks love scars.”

  Toff tried to laugh, but doing so hurt.

  Kendra’s radio squawked and crackled, and Toff heard the words “ambulance” and “contusions” and “heavy bleeding.”

  “No ambulance.” Toff struggled to sit up, but Murph pushed him back down.

  “Chill, dude. They’ve gotta follow procedure. You know that.” Murph gl
anced at the girls, then waggled his eyebrows at Toff. “Just think of all the action this is gonna buy you.”

  Toff closed his eyes and groaned. “Not worth it,” he muttered. He knew what was coming next. A stretcher ride to the parking lot, where he’d be loaded into the ambulance. X-rays. Stitches. His dad putting him on lockdown. Coach Diggs freaking the fuck out.

  “Want me to call your dad?” Murph asked.

  “We already did,” Kendra said, holstering her radio. “He’s meeting you at the hospital.”

  That didn’t surprise Toff. Like him, his dad knew all the lifeguards. Once upon a time, Dad had surfed the pro circuit. Now he made custom boards for pros and anyone else who could afford to pony up major cash. His dad always cut the lifeguards a good deal, calling it mahalo karma.

  “Can you text Dallas?” Toff asked Murph. “He’s supposed to meet me here.” After a few rides, they were going to grab food and then meet up with Amy.

  “The McNerd? Sure.” Murph nodded and stood up, moving out of the way as two more lifeguards parked the red lifeguard truck at the berm and ran toward them, carrying a stretcher.

  “Crap,” Toff muttered. He glanced at the crowd surrounding them, which was now at least twenty gawkers, most of them holding up their phones and recording. Wasn’t there a law against that? Invasion of privacy or something?

  “Yo, Nichols.”

  “What’s up, Esparza?” Toff forced a grin as the guys set the stretcher in the sand. “You do delivery service now? Where’s my lunch?”

  “At least your pretty face is still intact. Ready for a stretcher ride?”

  “I can walk.” Toff pushed himself up on his elbows, but Esparza put a restraining hand on his chest. Frustrated, Toff shot a glare at the crowd of gawkers. “Can you get rid of my fan club? I don’t wanna be a meme.”

  Esparza tilted his chin at Kendra, who blew her whistle and hollered at the crowd to disperse.

  “Call me! I’ll visit you in the hospital!” “Snapchat me! I’ll bring you cookies!” Voices floated toward him, and Toff gritted his teeth.

  Esparza grinned down at him. “Sucks to be you, huh?”